Friday, July 21, 2017

New to Me No. 4: Mitski, Puberty 2

Another
artist, another album, another review. Really liked this one, too. The album.

Artist/Album

Mitski,
Puberty 2

The Gateway Drug

“Happy,” a
smart, vulnerable vignette with a damned good musical score.

The Backstory

Some songs
hook your ear right away. Others gradually draw you in. “Happy” takes Approach
No. 2. Lyrically, it’s brilliant: it paraphrases a relationship in just two
verses, then comments and elaborates on it over three chorus segments
(probably; I listened to it twice in a row just now, and the family’s giving me
looks already). In my reading, it speaks to devotion more than love – misplaced
devotion, too. It tells the story of a born-rescuer, someone who takes other
people’s crap partly out kindness, and partly from a capacity for martyrdom. In
the second verse, the mess she describes – and it applies to the room and her
life - confirms the anxiety from the first verse.

Also, “Happy”
also feels unnervingly affirmative. By that I mean, the “narrator” (yes, part
of me hopes that’s not actually Mitski Miyawaki’s day in the life, at least not
a current one) walks knowingly into a place where she expects abandonment. She’s
OK with it, basically, and scene.

Musically, this
tune blows me away. Mitski arranged the song as a progression; the tone,
volume, and weight of the rhythm grow with what I took to be the narrator’s
certainty about embracing self-defeat. There’s a nice heartbeat effect that
builds with the lyrics, until it becomes a throb, but the vocals in this, both
in sound and structure, always, always stand out when I hear it.

The Album

I think I’m
getting clearer on how I want these to read. At least I hope I’m getting
closer. You tell me. At any rate…

Puberty 2 is
not something you put on for a party. I put its mood somewhere around three
months in into the aftermath of a breakup - when the real
excavation of one’s self-doubt begins. It’s for a contemplative space, in other
words, something to listen to alone, and to just sit with. Or that’s just mood.
I’m only starting to fill in the lyrics, but the ones I catch do listen like
some vague sum of helplessness before discontent. Still, caveat lector, “Happy”
is the only Mitski song I can dissect with any confidence.

I’d like to
pause here to ask, what is the industry standard for reviewing an album? What’s
the minimum number of listens? Does it require knowing all the words – or even
having theories on them? And what feels like the better boost: a few listens
backed by clear intent to have many more, or an exhaustive examination that
proves the reviewer’s knowledge of the work?

Being a
short-attention-span kinda guy, I’m going with the former. Moving on…

To anyone to
argue that Mitski’s too mopey, I give you “My Body’s Made of Crushed Little Stars.” That shit’s agitated as the conflicts she parades out a la Alanis
Morissette’s “Hand in My Pocket,” only it boasts razor edges, both musically
and lyrically, while Morissette speaks from a knowing smirk. For all that
energy – it’s in the register of addled-acoustic, and on two levels – sure, the
thing’s heavy enough with introspection to lean toward moping…then again, “My
Body’s Made of Crushed Little Stars” as much as “Happy” somehow inverts the
moping into defiance – as in, sure, I’m mopey, but I’m good, so…why are we
talking about this now?

But is she
good? That sense of unease, as much as almost anything else, is what I like
about Mitski.

I slipped in
that “almost” above because nothing about Mitski caught me her like sonically
sophisticated vocals. Whether slow song (say, “Thursday Girl”), or a tune with
a little more “pep” (say, “Fireworks”), she bends the vocals toward the
emotion/lyrics like a goddamn boss – and catching that’s not first listen shit
by any means. She communicates mood and emotional pitch nearly perfectly, so
you’re invested in the music/story even before you know exactly what it is. That
engagement arrests your attention firmly enough to make hearing the words feel
worthwhile, somehow, even important, if only to make sure you’re not fucking up
(also, you’re fucking up; seriously, no one will put up with you, ever, not
like a Mitski narrator).

Beyond that,
I just like what the musicality of her vocals, not just the way they match the
music, but how deftly she uses different vocal patterns to shift the tone
(thinking the chorus from “Fireworks”). In some cases, the vocals feel like
they anticipate the music – see, “Thursday Girl.”

Puberty 2’s
not a love-fest for me from first track to last, so much as it’s a
peaks-and-valleys exploration of a specific form of disappointment. Predictably
(for anyone who follows this project), I struggle with a couple down-tempo,
low-affect tunes, even as I appreciate the aural effect of low-affect music (“I Bet on Losing Dogs” stands out there). That’s hardly a universal, however, as I
count “Thursday Girl” as one of my clear favorites from the album. Still, the
clearest connection to my wavelength comes with a couple of the scolding
refrains in “My Body’s Made of Crushed Little Stars” (e.g., her wailing “I work
better under a deadline” sounds like a kind of truth that I’ve accidentally
arranged my life around).

At any rate, Puberty 2 is a great album. Even the songs I didn’t mention
(e.g., “A Loving Feeling” and "Your Best American Girl"; and, for the record, far better video work than what she did with "Happy") are good, so I’d count this album as worth just
about anyone’s time. Unless you’re in need of a pick-me-up. And there’s a
weirdness to that, in that Mitski sounds like she’d yank off her own arm if she
thought it’d make you feel better. Even though that’s highly unlikely to make
anyone actually feel better.